San Miguel’s Terrence Romeo back in the groove

JONAS TERRADO

Terrence Romeo, one of the heroes in San Miguel Beer’s stirring comeback win in Game 2 of their PBA Philippine Cup semifinal series with TNT, said his confidence never wavered even after dealing with a pair of injuries during the course of the ongoing tournament.

Romeo played huge in the Beermen’s 98-96 victory that ended on Marcio Lassiter’s buzzer-beating basket when he dropped 24 of his 26 points in the second half, including 15 in the fourth quarter for his best game since recovering from an Achilles injury.

The SMB guard had been dealing with injuries since last year when his campaign in the Clark bubble was cut short in just the third game of the eliminations with a dislocated shoulder.

This year saw Romeo getting hurt in the opening match of SMB’s season with a knee injury, prompting him to miss the next three outings but was able to make a quick recovery.

“Yung pinaka-una kong injury, yun yung talagang kinabahan ako na baka ma-out nanaman ako the whole conference,” Romeo said. “Nung sinabi na na-hyperextend lang ‘yung MCL ko, nagpasalamat ako kay God talaga kasi one month lang yung kailangan kong ipahinga para makabalik.”

He came back in time for the start of the PBA’s Bacolor resumption and was averaging 23.3 points in the first four games at the Don Honorio Ventura State University when he was pulled out of their meeting with Phoenix Super LPG last Sept. 17 due to his injured foot.

“Napaganda yung paglipat natin dito sa Pampanga kasi merong rest na at least mga two to three weeks na nakapagpahinga bago nagsimula. So nagkaroon ako ng chance na makarecover, magpagaling, tapos makasabay ulit sa practice bago kami mag-game,” he said.

“Tapos yung nagsimula na yung game dito, maganda pa rin ‘yung nailaro ko, tapos nainjury nanaman ako nung kalaban namin yung Phoenix. Di ko lang talaga madiretso pero hindi ako susuko. Alam ko may purpose. Hindi ako bibitaw. Gagawin ko ‘yung best ko para makatulong sa team para maachieve namin yung goal namin as a team.”

Romeo’s Game 2 performance could bode well for the Beermen for the rest of the series in which they had to play catch-up in both games.

Game 2 also saw June Mar Fajardo play an important role as well with 19 of his 22 points scored in the first half after a string of games that saw CJ Perez play the lead the role on offense.